Gourd and bamboo mouth organ. The term is used primarily by Kayan and Bahau peoples of Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo, although similar instruments have been played by many Borneo peoples, including the Iban, Kanowit, Dusun/Kadazan, Murut, Sebop, Kenyah and Punan (see Indonesia, §VII, 1, and Malaysia, §III). While organological details vary from group to group, these instruments generally consist of a dried gourd wind chamber, into which are inserted five to eight bamboo pipes. The Dusun/Kadazan and Murut of north-eastern Borneo (Sabah, Malaysia) organize the pipes into two parallel ranks of four tubes each. Peoples of the central highlands and adjacent areas to the east, west and south, usually arrange the tubes into a circular formation. With the exception of one mute pipe (typical of instruments from Sabah), the ends of the tubes sealed inside the wind chamber are equipped with free reeds. These vibrate when the player fills the reservoir with air by blowing into the neck of the gourd. Some instruments can also be made to sound by inhaling. Different pitches are produced with the fingers, either by covering one or two small holes on the exposed part of each tube, or by stopping the open end of the tube itself. A drone pipe is present on many instruments.
Historically, mouth organs have been played in various ritual and recreational contexts across the island of Borneo. In many of these contexts it has been played solely by men, although in some communities both men and women have played.
Many peoples of the central highlands have either discontinued performance of the mouth organ in the 20th century, or play it only rarely. Younger people are often unaware that such an instrument ever existed in these communities. In Sabah, however, the mouth organs of the Dusun/Kadazan and Murut have attained the status of a kind of cultural emblem, and are often sold in museums and craft shops.
Other terms for Borneo mouth organs include enkerurai, enkrurai, enkruri, kerurair (Iban); keluri (Sebop, some Kenyah, Kayan, and Iban sub-groups); keredi (some Kayan sub-groups); garudé (some Dusun, certain peoples of the central highlands); kediré’, kediréq, kedirek (some Kenyah sub-groups); sampotan, sempotan, sumpotan, sompoton (most Dusun/Kadazan and Murut); and slidap (some Kenyah sub-groups).
W.H. Furness: Home-Life of Borneo Headhunters (Philadelphia, 1902)
H.H. Juynboll: Borneo: Katalog des Ethnographischen Reichmuseums, ii (Leiden, 1910–32)
R. Liew: ‘Music and Musical Instruments in Borneo’, Journal of the Sabah College Borneo Society, iii (1962), 10–17
E.M. Frame: ‘The Musical Instruments of Sabah, Malaysia’, EthM, xxvi (1982), 247–74
J. Pugh-Kitingan: ‘Instruments and Instrumental Music of the Tambunan Kadazan/Dusun’, Sabah Museum and Archives Journal, i/2 (1988), 24–61
V.K. Gorlinski: ‘Pangpagaq: Religious and Social Significance of a Traditional Kenyah Music-Dance Form’, Sarawak Museum Journal, xl/61 (1989), 279–301 [special issue]
VIRGINIA GORLINSKI